


Kiss and Make it Better

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Family Rydell, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-21
Updated: 2010-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey McCall is a lover, not a fighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss and Make it Better

**Author's Note:**

> Written May 2008 for sorkin_fest; prompt: _Casey has a conversation with Danny's father. They wind up fighting and Casey gets a black eye_.

Casey McCall is a lover, not a fighter.

Well. Truthfully? He's no Casanova either, not that he's ever claimed to be. There had only been a few girls before Lisa, and those few had fallen under the heading of 'inexperienced teenage fumbling'. Lisa had had no complaints – no, scratch that, Lisa had had _many_ complaints, but she'd at least had the decency never to cast aspersions on his manhood. But, then again, after Charlie was born she hadn't shown a lot of interest in sex, and whose fault that had been Casey really would not like to say. There hadn't been many girls – women – in the post-Lisa days, either, Dana's idiotic Dating Plan notwithstanding. There had been Pixley, and Pixley had seemed not unimpressed. But she hadn't stuck around for very long, so … oh, who the hell knows?

The reason for that, the reason why there never had been many women in Casey's life, is a whole lot clearer these days than it used to be. For now there's Danny, and he and Danny are suspended in that timeless honeymoon bubble where every touch seems magical; Dan still looks at him in disbelief, as though he can't quite accept that he's really this lucky, and Casey is sure that he looks at Dan in much the same way. After all the wasted years that lie between them, it's hard to believe that this is real, that it's truly happening, that it will last. It _won't_ last, not like this, he's not naive enough to think that it will, but, for now, he's happy to make the most of it. He's _happy_. And that makes all the difference.

But that's as may be. The thing is, whatever the facts of the matter, Casey? _Not_ a fighter. His weapon of choice is his intelligence, not his fists; he can out-think, out-talk, out-reason almost any opponent. Or, as Dan would have it, bore them into a coma until they can't argue any more.

There are some things, though, that flesh and blood can't take. So when he gets off the phone to Dan's father, Casey reacts by sheer instinct and, apparently, the most instinctive and possibly only way to relieve his pent-up feelings is to slam his fist into the wall. Hard.

_Ow!_

Later on, when Dan's out of surgery, awake and more-or-less aware, he asks what happened. Sheepishly, Casey admits the truth.

"I phoned your dad," he says.

Dan's eyes are almost entirely black in the greyness of his face. He closes them now, revealing the shadows around them to be less than a shade paler. He sighs: tired, or troubled, or simply resigned, Casey can't tell. "Casey - "

"I know, I know, I know it was a mistake! But I thought ... I honestly thought ..."

He'd thought Dan's father would want to know. Want to know why, when he'd tuned into _Sports Night_ the night before, he'd been faced with Bobbi Bernstein and Mike Greenwey instead of Casey McCall alongside Dan Rydell. Might have been concerned, might need reassurance that his younger son was safe and well.

Casey can't imagine any scenario, past, present or future, where Charlie could be not where he ought to be and he, Casey, would not want to know the reason why. So, just as soon as he could spare a moment – after the surgery nurse had barred the door against him, and Natalie and Jeremy had spent certainly no more than an hour, two at the outside, peeling him off the ceiling in the visitors' lounge – he'd picked up the phone, inhaled long and hard, steadied his voice, and then called Dan's family in Connecticut, all ready to give a brief explanation. Just the bare facts would do: burst appendix, cross-town ambulance dash with all sirens blaring, emergency surgery, out of danger, two weeks' sick leave, and then we'll see.

Apparently even that much detail was more than Jacob Rydell had cared to hear. He'd listened to Casey's first few halting sentences, broken in with a curt, "I'll tell his mother. She'll send a basket," and then had hung up.

That was when Casey had let the wall have it, Jacob being out of reach and, in any case, kind of scary in his by-his-bootstraps, self-made-man sort of way. He's a diamond so rough that he's still mostly coal, and Casey is no match for him. Besides, when all's said, he's still Dan's father, and Casey was brought up too well to go about the place punching out his elders and, supposedly, betters. No matter how much they may deserve it.

Dan's shoulders shift restlessly on his pillow; any mention of his family makes him uncomfortable. With, Casey has to admit, good reason. "I could've told you how it'd go," is all he says. Then he opens his eyes and looks straight at Casey, questioning. "But that still doesn't account for the black eye."

"Oh," Casey mutters. He'd rather hoped that Dan would be groggy enough not to notice. No such luck. "He … kind of pissed me off, and I went to hit the wall. But I tripped, and missed - "

"You missed the _wall?!_"

"Um …not entirely," Casey admits, and flushes red. His head had been right on target. If it hadn't been for a kindly nurse, who'd stopped in passing to hand him an icepack and laugh at him more than he felt was called for, the bruise would be even more noticeable than it is.

Dan smiles at him, and stretches up his free hand to touch Casey's face.

"My hero," he says softly; and his fingers tangle in Casey's collar and pull him down for a kiss that's lingering and loving and tells him _thank you_ in a way that words could never express.

When Casey finally straightens, he's smiling. He may not be a hero – heroes, in general, are less given to falling over their own two feet – but so long as Danny loves him, he's king of the world.

***


End file.
